


Laughter is Love

by pinkstarpirate



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: I personally love my ending and I will fight you, fluff that is meant to make you laugh, there might be a little bit of UshiOi tension but definitely not confirmed, you might be disappointed by the ending but you might think it is the best thing ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 21:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15397437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkstarpirate/pseuds/pinkstarpirate
Summary: “Do you know you’re beautiful when you laugh?”The words hang in the silence that follows. Koutarou shifts in his chair wishing that he hadn’t said them.“My mom says I look like a donkey braying. Not sure that’s beautiful, Kouta,” Tetsurou mumbles before reaching for his takeout container again.





	Laughter is Love

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, especially those in the free! fandom, I promise that Toss a Penny's next chapter is coming. I've been tinkering with it, but I have to rewrite part because I changed the ending a little. But have this in the meantime. Enjoy!

“Do you know you’re beautiful when you laugh?”

The words hang in the silence that follows. Koutarou shifts in his chair wishing that he hadn’t said them.

“My mom says I look like a donkey braying. Not sure that’s beautiful, Kouta,” Tetsurou mumbles before reaching for his takeout container again.

Koutarou doesn’t want this to be a joke. There have been many times during their friendship when one of them says something meaningful and the other brushes it off as a joke. It’s kind of how their relationship worked during the six years they have known each other.

“Besides,” Tetsurou mumbles again, “It’s nothing like yours…” and the words taper off--the quiet retreat of awkward confessions.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment or a criticism?” Koutarou asks as he shoves another pork gyoza into his mouth and watches as Tetsurou splutters.

“Compliment, Kouta, definitely a compliment,” Tetsu answers as he turns away. Even the tips of his ears are red, though that is all Koutarou can see clearly. He’s pretty sure Tetsu’s face is burning though. A moment later, the middle blocker adds, “Can we please change the topic of conversation?”

Koutarou waits a beat, letting the torture continue a few seconds longer before nodding and saying, “Sure, is there something else you want to talk about?”

“Maybe not want to, but something we should talk about,” Tetsurou says as he stands up and walks to the kitchen. The refrigerator door opens and Koutarou hears the clinking of bottles as Tetsurou fumbles around looking for something. “You want one of the good beers?” he asks when the clinking stops.

“I thought we were saving them,” Koutarou says, the sound muffled since his mouth is stuffed with gyoza. He managed to shove two more into his mouth while Tetsurou raided their fridge for beverages. Koutarou fears the conversation that is coming when Tetsu returns, so better to finish his food now. It isn’t going to be an easy kind of talk for either of them.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Tetsurou says as he walks back and hands Koutarou a blissfully chilled bottle of very expensive beer.

“So we’re gonna talk about _things_ , huh?” Koutarou says as he reaches for and uses the bottle opener sitting on the coffee table to open his beer. The opener isn’t supposed to live on the coffee table, but is has been there for at least three months, so Koutarou is pretty sure it has established residency.

“If by ‘things’ you mean how ridiculously, erm, well…” Tetsu says, searching for the right tactful word to describe their situation.

“Gay,” Koutarou offers helpfully. It’s a rather straightforward description of their interactions as of late.

“Okay, gay then. How gay things have gotten between us, then yes, we are going to talk about things.”

Koutarou is pretty sure that he should have picked a different word. Any other word. Oh shit, this is actually happening.

“It’s not like we’ve done anything, Tetsu,” Koutarou says, poking his last remaining gyoza with a chopstick.

“It’s not like we haven’t both thought about it. Or am I the only one?” Tetsu says, just before taking a long drink from his beer.

Koutarou’s face grows hot. Very hot. “You’re not the only one,” he affirms when he can finally choke out the words.

“I’m totally okay with the idea of you or me being gay or bi or whatever, I just never thought that the equation would include both of us together,” Tetsurou says between long sips of beer.

“Have you been with a guy?” Koutarou asks, the curiosity kind of killing him. He’s been wondering if Tetsu has for ages, but he could never gather enough courage to ask, ‘ _Hey Tetsu, have you like, kissed a dude, or slept with a dude, or you know, whatever else…with a dude?_ ’

Tetsurou shakes his head no. His eyebrows are drawn tight, his expression not quite entirely sincere until he adds, “I’ve thought about it though, and I’ve, you know, watched porn of it.  Wouldn’t you know, it did the trick,” and with those words Tetsu sighs and finishes his beer. “You?”

“I kissed a guy once at a party on a dare. I never told anyone that I actually really liked it. It was supposed to be a stupid joke for Yukie. I’ve never seen her blush so hard.” Koutarou leaves out the part that he blushed just as hard.

“Was it Akaashi?” Tetsurou’s tone is a little flat, like the possibility that it could be Akaashi annoys him. “I always wondered if you had a crush on him.”

Koutarou actually did have a crush on Keiji for awhile, but it was kind of eclipsed by the crush he refused to admit he had on Kuroo, which started during his first year of high school before Akaashi even joined the Fukurodani team. That first training camp was hell, because Koutarou didn’t know exactly why he was drawn to Kuroo, but he definitely had been.

“You should try to get along with Akaashi,” Koutarou says just as flatly in response. He doesn’t admit any of the other things that had flashed through his mind.

“I do. He hates _me_ ,” Tetsurou grumbles. “He has at least three different mean nicknames for me.”

“That’s a sign that he likes you as a person. I have several of those nicknames too. He just uses them to get under your skin. If he didn’t like you he’d ignore you completely. Akaashi is the master of the cold shoulder,” Koutarou rambles out the explanation as to how Akaashi Keiji functions. It might have been a little counterintuitive, but that was Akaashi. It also prolonged having to dive back into their conversation about whatever is going on between the two of them.

“So was it?”

“Was it what?” Koutarou asks, confused.

“Was it Akaashi?” Tetsurou asks.

“No, it was Konoha,” Koutarou snaps. Tetsu needs to get over this weird thing he has with Akaashi. It’s almost like he is jealous...oh. The light bulb clicks on in Koutarou’s brain. Tetsu probably is a little jealous.

“So why haven’t you explored it more?” Tetsurou asks, his fingers nervously fidgeting now that he has polished off the remainder of his beer.

Koutarou shrugs. He’s honestly wondered that too. “I think I’m afraid I’ll try it and not actually be into it, and I like girls enough that I’ve never really needed to explore it further.”

Koutarou really does like women. He’s had a couple of girlfriends, one of them pretty serious. She broke up with him because he liked volleyball more than her. That was the actual reason she gave him, but Koutarou didn’t argue with it. He _did_ like volleyball more than her. Volleyball is in his blood and runs through his veins. You can’t just trump something like that.

But Tetsu is the best of both worlds, someone he truly cares about--yes, more than platonically--and Tetsu and he share volleyball. Both of them love volleyball. They played as rivals for three years, and now they’ve played as teammates for three years. Tetsu is part of volleyball for Koutarou, and maybe that’s just another reason he loves it so damn much.

“Why haven’t you tried it?” Koutarou asks, breaking himself of the revelations he is having about Kuroo.

“I’m just chickenshit about it. I almost asked Oikawa once,” he says.

“He is unapologetically gay, but really picky,” Koutarou replies.

“No, he has a type. And that type is beefy spikers. Please tell me that you know he has a crush on you?”

Koutarou sits and thinks it over for a moment, sifting through his memories, trying to remember a single moment that Oikawa made it clear that he wasn’t only gay, but into Koutarou too. “I didn’t have a clue.”

“That is a whole new level of willful ignorance,” Tetsurou says with a lift of his brows.

“Don’t judge me!” Koutarou huffs, looking at Tetsu who is now holding up his hands in a ‘don’t kill the messenger’ kind of gesture. “I might have been interested in a certain other teammate, so I might not have noticed.”

“I sure hope you are talking about me and not Ushijima. I mean, if ever there was someone absolutely clueless to romantic intentions…”

Koutarou stifles a laugh, but it is true. Ushijima isn’t the kind of guy made for wooing, unless you like having your efforts absolutely ignored. One of the college team’s female managers tried for almost a year to get him to ask her out, too painfully shy to do the asking herself. And then there is the angry sexual tension Oikawa aims at Ushijima. Koutarou swears he’s just going to tell them to get a room next time Oikawa goes off on Ushijima at practice.

“I’m talking about you,” Koutarou confirms.

“That’s good to hear,” Tetsurou says with a smile.

“But…” Koutarou starts and the smile slides right off of Tetsu’s lips.

“But?”

Koutarou takes a huge breath, holds it for a few seconds, and then lets it out in a long stream of air. “In high school we were good friends, but Tetsu, now you’re...you’re like my best friend. I’m kind of afraid of ruining that.”

Tetsurou sighs, but nods and says, “Yeah, I get that. It’s kind of why I wanted to experiment with Oikawa. See if being with a guy was something I wanted.”

“Why didn’t you?” Koutarou asks, trying to keep the irritation out of his tone.

“Because I wanted it to be you. If I was going to try it, I wanted it to be with the person who made me want to try it. But that just led me back to the whole, ‘don’t ruin your closest friendship because you have a crush’ thing. To be honest, Kouta, sometimes the love I feel for you as a friend bleeds into the love I have for you in romantic ways, and it just all tangles together.”

Tetsurou is silent for exactly five seconds after he realizes what he said. Koutarou isn’t sure that either of them breathe during those long, excruciating moments.

“Shit, I mean, well, I do mean it, but that isn’t how I wanted to confess it, but I did want to confess. Shit, confessing sounds so cliche and it doesn’t sound like what I felt. It wasn’t cheesy like that, Kouta...” Tetsurou rushes the words out, trying to convey so many things at once.

Koutarou only says one single word. “Same.”

“Same?” Tetsurou asks, his words no longer coming out in some stream-of-consciousness word vomit.

“I love you too, but I’m not sure which kind or if it’s just all kinds. I didn’t know how to say that,” Koutarou says as he leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees.

“Hmmm,” Tetsurou hums, like he is thinking. Sometimes Tetsurou does this when he is strategizing during games. He and Oikawa are always doing that kind of stuff together, and their minds could be wicked dangerous when put to the same task. This isn’t a volleyball game though, so Koutarou isn’t really sure how to interpret it.

“Do you want to try it? Like being together?” Tetsurou asks, putting everything on the table. However, he quickly realizes that he has just given the entire burden of the decision to Koutarou. Tetsurou must know how monumentally difficult that is, so he adds, “I want to try it, Kouta.”

Is Koutarou willing to risk everything to attempt a romance with his best friend? The two of them aren’t just best friends, they are also teammates, and the two of them share this apartment. If it went wrong, it would go really wrong. But still…

“I think I do,” Koutarou says quietly. Koutarou doesn’t do much quietly, so it means something that he says these words like he does.

There is a long silence between them.  Koutarou knows what just happened was emotionally heavy, but he doesn't know what to say now.  How do they take the next step forward.  Luckily, he doesn't have to figure that out.  Tetsurou does it for him.

“Do we like kiss now or something?” Tetsurou asks, but not seriously. No, this is in the completely unserious, assholish way of his. It completely breaks the tension, but also ruins the moment. Tetsu is giggling to his dumb self as Koutarou lobs a chopstick at his head. Tetsurou walks right toward Koutarou’s chair, all confident swagger, making kissy noises like an moron.

“I refuse,” Koutarou says and laughs as he tries to stave off this attack.

Tetsurou swings one leg over an arm of the chair and manages to not quite straddle Koutarou or the chair, but instead is just some kind of idiot octopus with arms and legs flailing everywhere. He is still making kissy noises.

“Do you really want our first kiss to be like this?” Koutarou says as he smashes one hand against Tetsurou’s cheek and tries to push him away.

“Absolutely,” Tetsu says and pulls back to avoid Koutarou’s hand as he comes in from a different angle. “It’s _us._ It can’t be any other way, Kouta. It can only be like this.”

“Aaack,” Koutarou says, and this time Tetsu manages to land a giant, wet--so very, very wet--kiss on his cheek. Koutarou takes a moment to wipe the saliva off of his skin. “That is so gross. You know payback is coming, right?”

“I was counting on it,” Tetsu says as he waggles his eyebrows suggestively at Koutarou and slips out of his lap and out of reach.

“Revenge is coming, Kuroo Tetsurou. I’m going to stick my whole tongue in your ear in the least sexy way possible,” Koutarou says as he stands from his chair and chases Tetsurou around the couch.

“Dude, you know I hate wet things in my ear. You know!” Tetsurou shoots Koutarou the most betrayed look he possibly can, and then runs as Koutarou makes another move toward him.

\---

Two days later, at the end of practice, Oikawa watches as an unwitting Kuroo is tackled from behind by Bokuto. What in the hell are those two doing? Oikawa isn’t sure what he expects, but he certainly isn’t expecting Bokuto to pin Kuroo to the ground and proceed to...oh gross. Did Bokuto just shove his whole tongue into Kuroo’s ear? Was he still licking it?

“What are they doing?” Ushijima says as he picks up a volleyball Oikawa dropped when this particular horror show started.

“I’m not sure what…” Oikawa starts, but then he is stunned into silence as Bokuto, still stradling Kuroo’s hips, leans down and gives Kuroo a real kiss. An honest-to-God kiss, with like feelings and stuff.

“Took them long enough,” Ushijima says unfazed.

Oikawa, still in shock, just turns to Ushijima and gawks. How did that asshole realize this before he did? “Shut up, Ushiwaka! Mind your own business and help me take down the net.”

Ushijima just shrugs and turns away from his two teammates making out on the floor. “It’s going to be hard to sweep with them there like that,” he adds, much to Oikawa’s ire.


End file.
